Adrien and the Locked Car
by quicksilversquared
Summary: Adrien has locked his keys in the car again and has to call up Marinette to have her bring the spare set of keys so he can get back in the car and continue on his merry way. Unfortunately, it's not that easy. With the keyhole on the car door rusted shut (thanks so much, Plagg), Adrien has to find another way to get in.


Adrien was fairly positive that he had the absolute _worst_ luck in the world. Here he stood in the pouring rain, right next to his nice, dry car, and his keys were locked inside.

 _Of course_.

Normally, it wouldn't be a huge deal. Adrien would just have Plagg phase inside the car and open it from the inside like he normally did (unfortunately, Adrien seemed to have quite the habit of locking his keys inside the car; he had been _trying_ to be better about it, but apparently his efforts had been in vain), but Plagg had been feeling a little ill and so he had been left at home with Marinette while Adrien ran a few errands.

 _Of course_.

Sighing, Adrien called up Marinette. He knew that they had an extra set of keys for the car back in their apartment, and though the battery on that car fob only worked periodically, it had a key that he could use to get into the car again.

" _Adrien_ ," Marinette sighed in exasperation as soon as Adrien broke the news. "Again?"

"Could you pretty please bring the spare set of keys?" Adrien asked hopefully. "I'm by the bank."

"On my way," Marinette promised. "But it might take a while, since I think I just saw the bus go by."

Adrien tried not to groan. As he hung up, the rain came down harder and he scuttled back to the closest shop to hide under the awning while he waited for Marinette. It took a bit- apparently she _had_ just missed the previous bus- but then he saw her Ladybug-patterned umbrella bobbing down the sidewalk, and he eagerly bounced forward to meet her.

"I brought the keys," Marinette greeted him, rolling up on her toes to press a kiss to his lips. "How did you lock yourself out _again?_ All you have to do is just use the keys to lock the door once you've gotten out!"

Adrien just grinned at her sheepishly. "I just got used to using the buttons on the inside to lock my door as soon as I opened it when the Gorilla drove me around after some fangirl tried slipping in after I got out so she could pounce on me when I got back in after that photoshoot. It didn't work, obviously- the Gorilla tossed her out- but I did that for so long that it's automatic now. I don't think I've ever actually remembered to use the key fob to lock the car, only unlock it."

"I'm gonna tape over that button," Marinette decided as Adrien led the way through the parking lot to their car. "I'm taping over it and writing 'NO. BAD ADRIEN' in all capitals on it, so you'll notice every time you go for it."

Adrien laughed.

They arrived at the car, and Adrien eagerly shoved the keys Marinette had brought into the lock on the car door so they could get out of the rain and he could drive them back home.

Or, rather, he _tried_ to shove the key into the lock. Only the tip of the key went in, and then it got stuck. All the jiggling and pushing couldn't get it to go any further in or turn even a millimeter. Adrien frowned, pulled the key out, and tried again.

The same thing happened. The key just didn't want to go in.

Adrien tried the key fob, and as he expected, it didn't work. They _really_ needed to look into getting a new battery put into it so they would have two functional sets of keys, but they hadn't exactly had the time recently, not with school in session giving Adrien a million papers to correct, and with Marinette buried in orders from her online boutique.

"Let me try," Marinette suggested. She took the keys and tried and, just like Adrien, didn't have any success. Frowning, she crouched down and peered at the lock.

"It's rusted shut," Marinette said, She sounded rather confused. "Adrien, isn't this a fairly new car?"

"Yeah, it is." Adrien frowned, leaning down next to her to peer at the lock again. Sure enough, the brownish red color of rust covering the entire lock was unmistakable. "Oh, that's _weird_."

"Bad luck," Marinette commented. She tried the dead key fob again in vain, giving it a shake in annoyance when it didn't respond. "Ugh, I should have brought Tikki, but she was taking care of Plagg."

Something clicked in Adrien's mind. "Oh! Plagg! I always have him open the door for me when I lock myself out, and he usually phases right through that part of the door. I bet he accidentally caused the rusting."

Marinette sighed. "Yeah, you're probably right."

"I'll have to get in some other way, then," Adrien decided. He glanced towards the car. "Pity that the back door doesn't have any locks on it. It wouldn't be _that_ hard to just crawl over to the front seat." He started walking around to the back of the car, scanning it for some other way to get in. Surely it wasn't _only_ the driver's side door that had a lock on it?

Just as he was rounding the back of the car, Adrien caught a small flash of silver on the trunk. He paused and- yes, there was a lock on his trunk, too.

...well, he didn't really have anything to lose, did he? Just his dignity.

Sighing, Adrien unlocked his trunk and opened it. Marinette came around to watch as he started to try to climb in.

"Adrien, hiding from your problems isn't going to help anything," she scolded, though there was a definite giggle in her voice. "Silly kitty, what are you doing?"

"Trying to find the latch on this seat," Adrien huffed, trying to ignore the metal digging uncomfortably into his stomach as he wriggled forward into the cramped space. "It flips down, and then _hopefully_ I'll be able to crawl through."

Marinette hastily muffled another snort.

After another few minutes of fumbling in the dark trunk, Adrien finally managed to find the little lever and trip it. The leftmost part of the back seat _slooooowly_ inched downward as he pushed at it, sticky from disuse, and then Adrien was able to size up the hole it gave him.

...that was pretty pitiful, actually. Adrien was _really_ glad that he wasn't any wider than he was, because as it was he was going to have a fun time shimmying his shoulders through the gap that the lowered seat left.

"How's it going, kitty?" Marinette wanted to know as Adrien worked on heaving his lower body into the trunk. He was _really_ glad that he was just wearing a pair of old jeans and a t-shirt, because otherwise he would be concerned about things snagging and ripping. As it was, his rear was getting rather wet from the rain. "Any progress?"

"Got the seat down," Adrien reported. He wriggled again, and found that his hips seemed to be annoyingly snagged on the lip of the trunk. "...could I maybe get some help? I'm stuck."

"Oh, is _that_ what all of the butt-wriggling was about? I thought you were just imitating a cat about to pounce. I was enjoying the show."

" _Mariiiii_."

She giggled again, and then Adrien felt her arms wrap around his legs to hoist his hips into the air. He wriggled forward on his stomach, forcing his shoulders through the gap in the seats. It was a slow process, since his shoulders were wider than the gap and he had to twist to fit through, and Adrien mentally cursed his decision to not get a hatchback car or station wagon instead of the sleek sedan. It would have been _so. much. easier_. to just be able to climb over the seat instead of having to try to fit through the hole that one seat left.

Didn't the other seats go down, too? Maybe he should have tried to get those down first before trying to climb through. It was too late to try that now, since he already had his shoulders through and his arms pinned by his side. Adrien hunched up and pulled his feet fully into the trunk, shoving against the back to push himself through.

As soon as he pushed himself past the widest part of his body, it was as though a dam had burst. His shove on the trunk pushed him so far forward that he only just avoided whacking his head on the back of the driver's seat.

"Almost there!" Marinette called encouragingly. She was grinning at him through the window. "Do you want me to close your trunk before it gets soaked?"

"Yes please!"

Now that his arms were free, Adrien could pull himself forward, not that he exactly had a lot of space to work with. Since he was tall, he needed lots of space to maneuver...and he also always had the driver's seat all the way back, which didn't leave a whole lot of space in the back.

...maybe he should have asked Marinette to do the crawling through the car part. Since she was both smaller and more flexible, she would surely have had an easier time.

"At least this didn't happen while you were at school!" Marinette called through the window as Adrien contorted himself into a weird position to try to pull his legs free of the trunk. "Your students might have seen you then!"

Adrien just grumbled and wriggled, then frantically clung to the seat so that he wouldn't fall from the seat to the floor and get impossibly stuck there.

After a few more minutes of squirming, a disgruntled (and rumpled) Adrien finally clambered over the center console and into the driver's seat, where his working car keys waited. He collapsed and let out a long sigh.

 _That_ had been more work than he had anticipated.

A sudden snort from the opposite side of the car made Adrien glance over, and he saw Marinette standing next to the passenger side door, looking _very_ amused. He frowned at her decidedly impish expression. "What?"

"Adrien?"

"Yeah?"

"This door has a lock, too."

* * *

 _A/N: This was actually inspired by something that happened to my dad ages ago- he locked his keys inside the car, and my mom had to drive the other set of keys to him. Only in that case, she had accidentally grabbed the keys for the trunk of his car instead of the regular door keys (why they were different, I have no idea), so he had no choice but to crawl through the car via the trunk. That had to be fun (not) as that was not a large car and he's rather tall (a trait that was not passed down to me. Boo).  
_

 _As with most of my stories, this is a one-shot and is therefore complete. Reviews are always appreciated! :)_


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